A prime minister says a newspaper has damaged national security and calls for its editor to be brought before Parliament; his government tells the same paper there has been "enough" debate on an issue and sends its security officials into the paper's offices to smash discs containing journalistic material; lawmakers call for the editor's prosecution and accuse the paper of treason; the paper is forced to spirit its stories out of the country to ensure publication overseas.

As Alan Rusbridger appears
Tuesday before the Home Affairs committee of the U.K. Parliament to give
evidence regarding the Guardian's
coverage of surveillance activities by the U.S. and U.K. governments, British
journalists and analysts say that newspaper's legal troubles are worrying in
large part because they come against the backdrop of increased regulation and
scrutiny of the wider industry.

One way for journalists to build more secure newsrooms and safer networks would be for more of them to learn and practice digital hygiene and information security. But that's not enough. We also need journalists to stand together across borders, not just as an industry, but as a community, against government surveillance.

The Obama administration, in its attempt to control government leaks, has issued subpoenas and conducted unprecedented surveillance of journalists, as CPJ documented in a report this week. But the United States is hardly the only democratic nation that has been trying to unveil reporters' sources and other professional secrets.

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Dear Prime Minister David Cameron: The U.K.'s use of anti-terror laws to seize journalistic material from David Miranda, partner and assistant to Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, is deeply troubling and not in keeping with the U.K's historic commitment to press freedom. We call on you to launch a thorough and transparent investigation and to ensure that his confiscated equipment and data are returned at once.

The battle for a free press sometimes feels like a war
between indignation and intimidation. Journalists learn of abuses of power,
crime, or corruption, and--indignant--they speak out. In response, the
perpetrators of those abuses--be they government officials or criminals--try to
intimidate the journalists into silence with threats, lawsuits, jail, or even
murder. Last night, the Committee to Protect Journalists paid
tribute to a handful of journalists for whom indignation is a driving
force, no matter the scale of intimidation.